With the new school year approaching, Waubonsie Valley High School has unveiled a new crest to better represent the school’s history.
“In preparation for our 50th anniversary in 2025, we had an imagery committee come together about three years ago. We started really investigating our school imagery and imagery that reflects the history and the tradition of the school and how we could do that to better represent our school in a more culturally and educationally appropriate way,” said Jason Stipp, principal of Waubonsie Valley High School.
The schools Potawatomi history
The school is named after former Potawatomi tribe leader Chief Waubonsie, who settled on the land the school now occupies. Though the school’s former crest gave a nod to its Native American history, the way it portrayed the tribe was not accurate.
“The crest that our school had been using for the last 50 years had been the caricature of Native Americans with the tomahawks and with the headdress. We knew that Chief Waubonsie did not wear a headdress. And we thought some of that imagery was very stereotypical to the first peoples. We wanted to get out of the business of having the school mascot be a caricature of a Native American,” said Stipp.
About the new crest
The new logo contains a breaking sun that represents Chief Waubonsie, whose name is believed to mean “break of day”. It also has prairie grass for the Eola Hill Prairie and the Indian Prairie School District. In the center is a W.V. flame representing the Potawatomi Tribe which is known as “keepers of the flame”. And the feathers surrounding the word Warriors in the crest reflect the student body.
Stipp says this is a key moment in the school’s history and a big step in the right direction.
“We feel that there is a lot of tradition and pride and spirit in this school that we’re able to capture in this new crest and that we’re able to better reflect as a school of where we’re headed, as opposed to kind of living in the past. So exciting times for us, for sure,” said Stipp.
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